Gritty Realism

Session 56

Mob wars, Ruses, and Streakers.

Holy moly did y’all see that wagon crash? Of course you didn’t. It was cleaned up as quickly as it crashed.
I tended to the wounded, and put them up in our comfortable suite back at the Dancing Dragon.

Following that, Heinz showed some gratitude – are we getting through to him? I’ll be on that stage in the festival before you know it!
We offered to go kill the bandits immediately, but he called us off as we were still needed to ensure the proper running of the festival…

Good thing he did, since later in the day three drunken streaking teenagers managed to get into the main tent. They were swiftly dealt with by Azmo, who grabbed them and dunked them into the river until they sobered up.
Al also ensured that they weren’t too harshly punished by Heinz, since he was concerned they may just be executed (as Heinz has shown he is not one to suffer fools).

Meanwhile, Jarvok (he told me about this later) was standing between two rival families in the main tent, staring down anyone who looked like they wanted to commence a fight.

Three of us returned to the Dancing Dragon pub as we were called upon by Heinzonce again. I had a look for my allies, but could only find Al and Francis [I think it was francis?], so the three of us returned and were made a delicious dinner.
My goodnes Heinzsure can talk… He rambled on for a while before offering to pay us extra dosh to kill the bandits… (We talked him up since defending the festival was a pretty safe task, whereas a gang of bandits could prove significantly more lethal!) – He’s gonna pay us 30g for each of us here (3 of us) plus another 10 for each other member… and I’ve managed to talk him into letting me perform for the nobles, since word got back (obviously) that my spontaneous poetry in the Dragon was very well recieved.
He let us know all he knows about the Bandits… They are holed up in Blackrock Keep. Al immediately suggested we should be able to keep it if we cleared all the Bandits, to which Heinz reluctantly agreed. Sly nobleman.

We continued to chat until a bloke comes smashing through the door, yelling that bandits have attacked a wagon at the south gate. Some panic ensued, so I tried to calm everyone down by telling them I would run and investigate, so off I went.

I arrived at the south gate, and there was nothing going on, so I ran maybe another 200 foot out, searched around, and found nothing. I at this stage opted to get more allies, since obviously they had made off with the wagon and taken hostages!

I ran back to the inn to find the door barred, so I banged on the door and was let in, and asked for help finding the wagon!

It was a ruse. There was no wagon, the Carmello family had tried to get us to all go so that they could exact revenge on the Tortillas. They bundled into the pub and barred the door as soon as I had left. The reason for this revenge, I found out later, was because Luigi Tortilla hired a totally incompetent assassin to go and kill Aldo Carmello. The assassin was obviously captured and killed, and this deeply offended Aldo. At least hire someone suitable for the job. I think I would be pissed off too…

Shortly after I had this explained to me, Luigi Tortilla entered the pub, and thanked us for helping to protect his family. He also warned us of Utrecht Magnussen who was an old Tiefling gang leader (but was himself human) who is in town.

Later in the evening, the locals returned to the pub from the festival, and were very grateful to Al for helping to spare their sons lives.

The rest of the party showed up finally, after the festival had wound down, so we headed out of town towards Blackrock Keep. As we left the town, a Dwarf Slayer called “Mad Geddy Ironhead” accosted the party, and began to insult us all. We engaged with him and tried to understand what he was so mad about and he muttered about a vendetta against Heinz. We sympathised with his cause as we obviously know Heinz is a pretty big asshole.
When we asked him why he was outside of town, rather than charging in to enact his vendetta, he told us that he keeps trying, but always gets kicked out by the city guard. How pathetic! He continues to insult us, so we leave him to it… Tired of his nonsense… although he does maybe have a future as an unintentional comedian i suspect.

As we arrive at the keep, a crossbow bolt flies past the party, and is lodged into the door. A note was attached which stated that Heinz is not what he seems. It also had a convenient map of the Cellar attached, with more detail than the one Heinz gave us.

The keep looks like a resting place for soldiers. Having been abandoned, it has since been used as a home by animals such as wolves.
Lit by moonlight we proceeded carefully towards the hearth in the first room. The first thing we noticed was that some areas are very well dusted, and others are coated in a thick layer, and clearly unused.
We discovered 3 cloaks hung up in the next room, and in the one adjacent to that, 3 bedrolls, then against a wall we found a table with 3 chairs.
On the table was a pipe with Leering green dragons on it. Francis recalled that this was similar to Wilf the shopkeep’s. Weird…

We descended into the cellar, and found a cleaner area with tools for mining.

Within seconds we were attacked by some horrible mutants! The combat lasted not long, and there was a caster of some kind in the next room who compounded our problems by dumping poisonous gas into our room.
I managed to just about keep everybody conscious during this, silencing the caster and then dispelling the cloud… and we managed to just scrape through thanks to me!

Heinz Schiller doesn’t care about adventuring people. One of my greatest pains in life is never being able to see myself perform or fight.
Looking forward, I can’t wait to get the hell out of this dungeon, and perform at the Wurst Fest. This will kick start my fame inside and out of Frampt no doubt!